


Within It We Are Nameless

by sentientcitizen



Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: Asgardian Perceptions of Sex/Gender, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Gen, Kidfic (Kinda), Magic, Manipulations, Multi, Norse Mythology - Freeform, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-20
Updated: 2011-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-23 03:02:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentientcitizen/pseuds/sentientcitizen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The childhood of Loki Odinson, through his uncle’s eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Within It We Are Nameless

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the "Thor" movie. Unsurprisingly, movie canon =/= comic canon =/= myth canon, and of course neither comics nor myths are known for their internal consistency in the first place. So while I personally consider this fic canon compliant, YMMV. I own neither the Thor movie nor the comics, and I’m earning no money from this fic. Thank-you as always to my wonderful beta, [](http://sophia-sol.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**sophia_sol**](http://sophia-sol.dreamwidth.org/) , without whom this fic would have been significantly more problematic - in every sense of the word. Her fingerprints are on everything I write, but this fic more than most. ~Keen observers~ will notice that Vili draws heavy inspiration from a certain 5,000 year old man, hence the "stealth crossover" tag.

  


  
_“People's fates are simplified by their names.”  
-Elias Canetti_   


“Vili.”

It had been hundreds of years since he’d heard that name.

“This is a dangerous time to pay me a visit,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. He turned a page with cold-stiffened fingers. Over the years, he’d come to the conclusion that winter in Brittania was practically as bad as Jotunheim. “Anyone who sees you would say I was consorting with devils. I’d rather not get burned as a witch, thank-you.”

“Vili, please.”

“I’ll admit,” he continued, “if you take the proper precautions it’s an inconvenience more than anything, but it damn well hurts. And,” he added, carefully turning another page, “it’s Benjamin now. Benjamin Adams.” He turned, at last, to face his visitor. Odin looked... like crap. The eyepatch was new, and jarring, as were the grey hairs and the signs of strain written in the lines across his forehead. It looked like it had been a while since his last Odinsleep. But even with the passing centuries marked upon his face, making him look more like a Midgard man than he ever had, it still seemed incongruous to see Asgard’s Allfather standing among rough stone and simple wood.

“Nice,” he said, nodding towards the patch. “Is it true you gouged out the eye yourself, and dropped it in the Well of Wisdom?”

“I lost it in the field of battle, to Laufey,” Odin said, flatly.

“And with every year that passes, I regret less and less that I did not join you,” said Benjamin, false-cheerful. He would have died, had he taken to the field. He’d known it then, he knew it now. His strategy had carried the day; he was a tactician, and a skilled one, but no more a warrior than the average aesir. He’d played his role, thrice-curse it all. Odin had been too stupid - too stubborn - to see the vast difference between the sword-skill with which Benjamin so impressed his human friends, and the sword-skill required to survive a battle of that scale.

Odin gritted his teeth, and pointedly changed the topic. “The boys are four centuries in age, now.”

“Hmm,” was all Benjamin said, producing not so much a sound as a faint puff of breath, turning white where it mingled with the cold air and then rapidly dispersing. Asgardians aged differently than mortal children. The boys would look seven or eight to human eyes, but they’d be stronger than a Midgard child, both in body and will, constantly testing the boundaries imposed by their elders. Unlike a Midgard child, they would have access to magic, weapons, and sciences so great that Midgard’s alchemists could not yet even conceive of them.

No wonder Odin was looking a bit run off his feet.

“Yes, the boys.” Emotions Benjamin couldn’t quite name stirred within him, coiling heavily in his gut and creeping upward to tighten around his lungs, hindering his breath. He turned deliberately back to his books, although his gaze came to rest not on the words but across the room, where the fireplace lay cold and dark. His could endure the cold better than most, and there was greater need for firewood elsewhere in the monastery. “I heard rumours. Myths, legends - you know the kind of thing. Little Loki and Thor. Bundles of joy, I’m sure. You and Frigga must be very happy.”

“We are,” Odin said, hesitantly. “We are, except - a problem has arisen, with which I require your help. Brother, I - ”

Benjamin snapped his book shut with a sharp _crack_ , and Odin fell silent. That was one advantage bound leaves had over scrolls, at any rate - the most dramatic gesture you could indulge with a scroll was to briskly re-roll it. “It’s ‘Benjamin’,” he said, coolly. His hands trembled slightly. “‘Ben’, even. ‘Vili’ if you really must. But not ‘brother’. Not from you.”

He’d spent most of his life on Midgard, surrounded by clever human scholars. He liked it here. But Asgard had been his _home_ , the place to which he always returned. He still remembered the look on Odin’s face as he spat insults – raven-starver, _coward_. He still remembered the feeling of it, like Yggdrasil dying beneath him, the roots of the great tree shrivelling up into nothingness; the whole universe crashing to the ground. Most aesir preferred death over banishment.

But then, he’d never been quite like other aesir. _Run,_ his own voice spoke from distant memory. _Live. Grow stronger. Allfather, you know this has always been my way._

Odin’s face closed down. “Vili,” he said stiffly. “I require your assistance. I have come to realise that Loki and Thor are... that _Loki_ may find himself in need of more than a father can give him. He may need - he will need someone to help him become more than a reflection of his brother.”

Benjamin considered Odin’s choice of words. Reflection: identical. Or, reflection: opposite. “And you need me because...?”

“I can think of no one else in all the worlds better suited to help him understand what it means to be a true brother,” Odin said, and it had the polished sound of practised sentiment. Benjamin would have bet good money that Frigga had helped him choose the precise words to use. Odin had probably practised it in front of a mirror.

“Some people,” he said after a moment, tugging his cloak a little tighter to his body for what warmth it could give him, “just say, ‘I’m sorry’.”

“Would you have accepted such an apology?”

“Of course not.” Benjamin stood. He began tidying his notes away, stacking them neatly on his desk more from habit than anything. He ran mentally through his meager collection of possessions - and companions. There was nothing here on Midgard that he couldn’t replace, he decided, and not much point in fare-thee-wells. Too hard to explain where he’d be going. “Understand this: I do not forgive you. But I miss regular meals and and warm blankets and privies that don’t reek like a day-old corpse and frankly, I was fairly serious about not wanting to get burned as a witch. Call up the bifrost and let's get this over with, shall we?”

* * *

He spent three days settling himself, until he could delay the task no longer. Reluctance dragging at his limbs, he ventured from his halls to seek the child Loki.

It took Benjamin longer than he thought it would to find his way to the archery field, where the boy was said to be practising with his brother and three of their friends. But as the minutes passed he felt his confidence returning. Asgard had changed hardly at all, and with each step some new sight called forth long-unused memories until he walked with the easy stride of one who had dwelt there mere weeks ago, rather than centuries.

Turning a corner, he paused. There, beside a half-wall and just below the line of sight from the archery field, crouched a fierce-looking, golden-haired little girl, and a slender, dark-haired boy who could only be Loki. Both clutched an unstrung bow and a quiver of arrows, and they appeared to be deep in a frantic, whispered conversation.

Automatically, Benjamin stepped back, and whispered the words to draw the shadows around him like a cloak, hiding him from view. With silent steps he slipped closer, lingering near walls where the presence of a man-sized shadow would raise no suspicion.

The girl was shaking her head, angry, and there was an expression of desperation on young Loki’s face as he tried to convince her of - something. Before Benjamin could slip close enough to hear their words, the girl threw her arms up in a gesture of frustrated consent, and relief wrote itself plainly in Loki’s eyes. He hissed one last instruction at her, making her scowl mulishly, then schooled his face into something approaching chagrin before turning and darting towards the field.

Benjamin slipped silently along in the boy’s wake.

The field was long and narrow, grassy ground bordered on three sides with what appeared to be seamless marble, presumably strong enough not to chip when struck with the inevitable stray arrow. The grass was insipid stuff, yellow-tinged and very nearly brown in patches, and Benjamin spared a moment to regret the loss of Midgard’s green growing things. In a few months the land of Britannia would would be wild and green, life springing up everywhere, and he’d be stuck here in the realm of metal and stone.

“Sorry,” he heard Loki call to his brother and three other boys - they could only be Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg, although Benjamin was not yet sure which child was which - who waited there impatiently. “My bowstring was fraying. I had to go find a new one.”

Benjamin winced, bracing for childish tantrums, but to his astonishment, after a few complaints and bit of reasonably good-natured teasing, all four boys settled down to work. Either these were four remarkably mature young aesir, or... Benjamin mentally re-ran the conversation. Loki had appealed to Thor’s authority, citing his brother’s admonitions to never shoot with a fraying string. Thor’s soothed pride had been enough to settle his temper, and the blond and the red-headed portions of the trio had followed his lead; the black-haired boy, slower to be placated, Loki had distracted with an quick self-deprecating joke and an invitation to take the first shot.

Crude tricks, but effective on children such as these. Interested, Benjamin drew yet closer.

* * *

It had been more than an hour, and Benjamin was quite bored. There was very little worth listening to in the boasting and bragging of young boys, and Loki remained relatively silent, doing little more than laughing sheepishly when his own shots went wide and making appropriate noises of appreciation when the others managed particularly impressive tricks. Fandral sent his shots flying with the flair of a born showman; Hogun, with the precision of a born archer. Thor and Volstagg held their own. The boy Loki was good enough to draw no derision, but not quite as good as his companions, and Benjamin wondered if that was intentional. Or perhaps he was ascribing too much subtlety to a child a mere four centuries in age?

And then Fandral let out of a burst of startled laughter at some joke told by the jovial Volstagg. His shot went wide, winging far past the target.

“That was terrible,” said Loki, over-loud. There was a slight tremor in his speech, but he spoke with a deliberate precision, and as his companions fell silent there was no doubt they’d heard him quite clearly indeed.

Fandral scowled. “What would you know about it?” he snapped, his hand tightening to white knuckles on the limb of his bow. Loki paled, and took a nervous step backwards.

Benjamin lifted his his hands to dispel his shadow-cloak and intercede - and then another voice rang out over the field.

“He’s right. That was awful.” It was the little golden-haired girl.

All eyes on the field turned to stare at her, and Benjamin noted with amusement that Thor’s eyes lit up at the sight of her. Asgard’s favoured son was pining for the ladies already? How young they learn.

“Even I could do better than that,” she added, raising her bow.

“Could not,” Fandral all but shouted. “You’re a _girl_. Even Loki could beat you!” Behind him, Hogun made a noise of faint disbelief, eyes narrowed. Benjamin wondered which sentiment he disagreed with: that a girl could shoot better than Fandral, or that Loki could shoot better than the girl?

The girl’s eyes gleamed. “Then prove it. You and I, here, now. Three shots, and may the best warrior win.”

Volstagg stepped hastily forward, hands held out placatingly. “Now, Sif,” he pleaded. “It isn’t right. You should be in the bakehouse at this time of day, making bread for the feasthalls. You make the best bread of any girl your age,” he added, and to judge by the boy’s tone, he meant the compliment to calm the girl. To judge by the rage that flashed through Sif’s eyes, Benjamin rather suspected that Volstagg’s effort had failed.

Only a child as young as Volstagg would believe that Sif’s gender made her any less able to fight; but ability had little to do with it. Most young aesir would choose to take up arms, if they could, and the whole realm would starve in short order. A woman could wield a sword - and most of them did learn how, for defense if nothing else - or a man bake bread, but lines had to be drawn somewhere, and given the slow aesir rate of reproduction...

Benjamin narrowed his eyes. If the girl had any skill at magic, in time he could teach her a spell to make her body a man’s body, in every detectable way. That wonderfully fluid Asgardian perception of gender would kick in; male pronouns springing naturally to lips, and combat lessons scheduled for the very next day. But although she looked to have plenty of will, he doubted she’d master more than the simplest spells. Magic required both will _and_ an ability to think in twists and bends; the Lady Sif, he suspected, thought in geometric lines. A true child of Asgard. And if she couldn’t maintain the spell herself - he made a face. To permanently impose the change from outside, even with her permission? The very thought was perverse. She wouldn’t be a man. She’d be a woman, twisted.

“Volstagg is right,” Loki whispered to Thor, quiet enough that Benjamin had to strain to hear it. “Thor, what if she _does_ beat him? He’ll be shamed!”

Thor stared at his brother for a moment, then declared in ringing tones, “Three shots each. The only prize is honour.” And then quieter, for Loki’s ears only, “Fear of shame should never keep a warrior from the battlefield. It is more shaming to be a coward than to lose the day.”

Loki bowed his head, as if conceding the point.

Both children were skilled archers. Benjamin had to admit, he was vaguely impressed. Fandral’s first shot whistled home to the dead center of its target - Sif’s first shot did the same. With clenched teeth, Fandral added a bit of extra flair to his next shot, a dramatic flourish that miraculously finished with his arrow deep in the center of the target, a hairsbreadth from his first shot. As the boys whooped and cheered, even silent Hogun letting out an excited shout, Sif narrowed her eyes and sent her second arrow flying for the target. No fancy tricks for her, but no one could fault her technique.

Fandral’s third shot hammered home. No games for him either, this time. Just grim-jawed determination.

Benjamin spared a glance for Loki, whose laughing face was tense with scarce-concealed fear. The boy coughed once, pointedly. Sif turned to glanced at him, then tossed her hair defiantly and turned her gaze to the range. She drew her bowstring back, paused for just the barest moment to secure her aim, and then -

 _Twang._ Loki’s shout of startled pain rang out over the field, and Sir cursed as her hand jerked in surprise. The arrow flew, but not quite true, and it found the target three handspans off centre. She was too much a warrior to throw her weapon in the dirt, but she gripped the bow like a quarterstaff as she rounded on Loki with a snarl.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Loki babbled apologies, stumbling backwards. His hand was clasped over his eye, and he sounded like he was in pain. “I’m sorry, I was trying to unstring my bow, it slipped, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to - ” He stumbled, and went down, landing undignified on his rear end.

Sif lunged - and came to an abrupt stop, jerked to a halt by Volstagg’s firm grip on the back of her dress. He smiled apologetically, but tugged her backwards, disregarding her rather inventive string of curses.

Thor pushed past them both and knelt beside his brother, pulling Loki’s hand down from his face with surprising gentleness. “You’ll be fine,” he said after a moment, relived. “Missed your eyes, and it’s hardly even bleeding. You must be more careful, Loki! Unless you wish to end up like Father?”

Loki shuddered, and shook his head. “No, no. I’m sorry.”

“If this had been a battle,” said Hogun shortly, “you would be dead by now.”

“I know,” said Loki. He took Thor’s hand, and let himself be hauled to his feet. There was indeed only the merest trickle of blood; by sheer luck, the string had hardly even broken the flesh. Still trembling slightly, a bruise already beginning to darken across his cheekbone where he’d been struck, he bowed to Sif. “My apologies, Lady. I fear the contest has gone to Fandral.” He locked gaze with her, and narrowed his eyes ever so slightly.

For a moment, Benjamin thought the young lady Sif’s pride would be too great - but with one last growl, she subsided. Sounding as if the words were being dragged from her, she said, “It was nothing. Fandral is an archer of great skill - it may be that I would have lost without your _interference_.” She spat out the last word.

Loki bowed again, the picture of contriteness.

Turning, Sif addressed Thor. “My skills leave much to be desired. But perhaps if I had a teacher...?”

Her lack of subtlety made Benjamin wince, but Loki looked satisfied, and Thor’s eyes all but lit up. “I shall tutor you! That is, if you wish? I am an excellent archer.”

And having impressed the boys but not shamed them, Sif then ingratiated herself to their leader - ensuring her place in the group. Benjamin smiled despite himself, the shape of Loki’s plan now clear. _Clever_ boy.

* * *

The others had long gone. Loki had endured much teasing when he claimed his headache from the bowstring was too great to join them at swordplay, but he had handled it with good humour and artful humility, and he was alone on the field when Benjamin dispelled his shadow cloak.

“I must say,” he said, “that was not what I expected.”

Loki whirled around. “What - how...?”

Benjamin waggled his fingers.

“Magic,” said Loki, and Benjamin nodded. The boy’s eyes narrowed.

Oh, good - that meant Loki had successfully internalised the typical aesir dislike of sorcery. _Joy_. “Don’t be so quick to judge, child,” he said, a little sharper than he’d meant to be. “You’re not exactly the frontal-assault type yourself, from what I just saw.”

A wariness came over the boy. “How long have you been watching me?” he asked, suspicious. “And - who are you? I don’t know your face. I know all the aesir.”

“Wrong,” said Benjamin, pleasantly. “You only know the aesir who have dwelt here since your birth. It’s been a long time since I walked these halls; you’re not as old as all that.” And then he relented, and said, “Last time I lived here, they called me Vili.”

Loki’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped, as perfectly comedic an effect as Benjamin could have hoped for. “Vili? Uncle Vili?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “It’s been centuries since I went by that name. I’ve been called a lot of things in my day; it has no special hold on my heart. Most recently I’ve been ‘Benjamin’.” He paused for a moment, reflecting on that, and then added, “And I think I shall continue to be so. If nothing else, your father tends to twitch at the very sound of it, which I confess I find deeply satisfying.”

He looked down at Loki, who still appeared to be reeling at the revelation.

“You can call me ‘Uncle’, if you like,” he offered after a moment. “And pick up your chin. If you’re trying to show me how shocked you are, the moment has passed; if you really are as startled as all that, you gain nothing by showing me your vulnerability.”

Loki’s jaw snapped shut.

“Now,” he continued, “I’d truly love to hear your side of what I just watched. It had some rough spots, but it was still the smoothest bit of manipulation I’ve ever seen from an aesir your age.”

The boy rallied admirably. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, with just the right touch of confused petulance.

“Little liar,” Benjamin said, voice full of admiration.

Bright splashes of colour bloomed across Loki’s cheeks. “I’m not - ”

“Peace, child,” Benjamin interrupted hastily, hoping to head off a tantrum. “It was a term of endearment. A good lie is a difficult skill to learn. But I’ve been honest with you - I’d appreciate if you returned the courtesy.”

Loki hesitated. “It’s... complicated.”

“It always is,” said Benjamin. “To tell the entire truth of even the simplest thought we would have to begin in the days before Yggdrasil. As I don’t particularly feel like standing here through the whole saga of creation, I suggest you paraphrase.”

Loki took a deep breath. “Sif wants to be a warrior,” he said. “But our parents won’t let her practise with the boys. Thor’s always breaking the rules, though, and Father lets him get away with it, as long as it does no real harm. People _listen_ to Thor, even though he’s not very - well, everyone loves him. I thought, if _he_ decided she could be a warrior... but he’s too proud. So I had to think of a way for him to let a girl practise with him, without it hurting his pride.” He jerks his chin up, defiant. “And it worked, didn’t it? Besides, Thor has admired Sif’s spirit since we were children together. He is happier, she is happier. I did a good thing.”

Benjamin forced himself not to smile at the way Loki referred to his childhood as a thing of the past. Instead, in dryest of tones, he pointed out, “And of course, Sif now owes you a favour. I assume you realise she’s going to tell Thor about this? That whole honour-among-warriors thing, I’m afraid.”

Loki snorted. “Obviously. But I plan to have an attack of conscience, you see. I’ll be telling Thor first, before she even thinks to. He won’t mind, not if I give him a few days to get to know her. They’re disgustingly well-suited.”

“Ah,” said Benjamin, now allowing himself the beginning of a smile. “And then your brother will owe you a favour as well. I might point out that you’ve also managed to steal an afternoon of uninterrupted time for yourself. For a purely altruistic good deed, it’s certainly reaped quite the tidy pile of rewards for you.”

Loki flushed again. “Can’t a good deed be good for me too?”

Benjamin’s smile grew into a grin. “Of course. That’s the best kind of trick: the one where everyone benefits.” His grin died and he frowned, then pursed his lips, considering. “You did quite well, all things considered. In the future I’d recommend against the part where you nearly put out your own eye. It wasn’t anywhere near good enough a trick to justify trading your eye. I think, though, that soon enough you won’t need to resort to such crude methods. A century or two under my tutelage and you’ll be good enough to pull off a trick like that one without even _Sif_ knowing what happened. It’s always best when your tools don’t realise that they’re being used,” he added.

“You’re going to tutor me?” asked Loki, sounding dazed.

“Of course,” he said. “Know why? Because you’ve already got the hard part down. You aren’t afraid to look like a fool. Too many would-be tricksters think they have to look the hero every time; but it’s hard to look the hero and still get what you want. Sometimes you must appear to lose the battle, lest you truly lose the war.” He tapped one toe idly against the hard-packed dirt, then added in his most casual tones, “I could teach you magic, too. Would you like to learn to robe yourself in shadows? It’s terribly useful.”

“...yes,” said Loki, after a moment. “Yes, please. I want to learn all the magics you can teach me.”

Benjamin began to laugh.

* * *

“So what is he, really?” Benjamin asked that evening, at one of those uncomfortable family dinners. Frigga and Odin perched restlessly in seats that everyone’s memory still insisted should belong to Besta and Bor; Ve and Benjamin sat in their old places, too far away from the Allfather and his wife for easy conversation. Thor and Loki dined elsewhere, not yet deemed old enough to join them.

Silence fell.

“He is my son,” said Odin, after a moment, his took brooking no argument. He picked up drinking horn and took a defiant gulp of mead.

Benjamin snorted, and bloody well brooked argument. “Don’t mistake me for a fool, Odin. The boy’s twisty enough that he makes _me_ look straightforward.” An exaggeration at the moment, but perhaps not for much longer. “So. What is he?” He punctuated the last three words with a ring of barley bread, jabbed in Odin’s general direction.

“He has... frost giant blood,” said Odin. His voice was over-loud, his words carefully enunciated. Anyone else might have thought the Allfather was just compensating for the length of table that stretched between them, but Benjamin recognised something in his brother’s face - some hint of anger, or maybe fear. Interesting.

Huginn and Muninn glared balefully down at Benjamin, clacking their beaks.

Benjamin frowned, and bit off a hunk of the bread with a satisfying _crunch_. “He’s quarter blooded at best,” he said, with his mouth full, then swallowed. “That is, unless someone’s been playing around with serious sciences. And Mother was, well. I’ll speak no ill of the dead, but she was very _straightforward_ , as giantesses go. She married Father, after all. If Loki inherited this from her, then I’m the queen of Svartalfaheim.”

Frigga was staring at her food, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. Ve looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, even Helheim. And Odin didn’t have the decency to look even a little ashamed. “What I mean to say, Benjamin, is that _all_ of his blood is frost giant blood.”

Benjamin stared. “Whose?” he asked, finally, in what he thought was a fairly calm voice, all things considered.

“I cannot be completely certain.”

Benjamin stood. “Odin. _Whose child is he_.”

“...Laufey’s.”

Benjamin inhaled. Benjamin exhaled. Benjamin sat down very, very carefully. And then, “You black-toothed carrion-eating bastard piglet born of a long dead short-wit sow, you potlicking deaf-mute hawknosed she-goat, you have the balls of a chicken and the brains of a mouse, you spurn mead to drink sheep’s piss with your lying maggot’s-mouth, you’re a rotting heap of shit that good men fear to breathe downwind from!”

Frigga looked like she was going to faint, or possibly vomit. Ve was half-way out of his seat, ready to leap between his brothers if necessary. And Odin’s eyes were ice.

“Are you quite finished?” the Allfather asked.

“Not hardly,” Benjamin hissed. “You’ve had him spelled this whole time, that’s _disgusting_. This isn’t some boyhood prank, turning Ve and I into hounds for a week. You changed his _nature_ and you just... Does the boy even know? That he’s the son of your greatest enemy?”

“You will tell him none of this,” said Odin, voice cold. “Nor will you disrupt the magics I have laid upon him. He is _my_ son, and you will never suggest otherwise again.”

* * *

There was nowhere in Asgard for a man to _think_. Benjamin stalked the streets and halls and at every turn polished metal reflected his own furious face back to him. He needed - he didn’t know what he needed. Something else. _Somewhere_ else. The leather soles of his boots slipped and squeaked on the marble floors, and he snarled an oath. Had it been like this before? He couldn't remember, but it must have been. Why had it never bothered him? Damn Odin, for making him a stranger in his own home.

Damn Odin for a great many things.

“Never suggest otherwise again”? As if that would make the whole problem go away? Hah! If _Thor_ had been the frost-giants’ child, perhaps that would have worked. Thor was brave and brash and quite beloved, but what he was not, particularly, was _bright_. But Loki? Benjamin didn’t understand how Odin could spend five minutes with his younger son and still believe he could keep the boy in ignorance forever.

So - damage control, that was the key now. Decades were passing all too quickly, and there was so much yet to do. His hands clutched at empty air. Oh, _God’s thumbs_ , there was so much yet to do.

“Lord Benjamin?”

He paused, and quickly schooled his face into something approaching calm. With the ease of practice, he forced his firsts to loosen, his shoulders to relax, his teeth to unclench. Only when he was certain that his body projected nothing but relaxed amusement did he turn.

“Lady Frigga,” he said. He placed a fist over his heart, and swept into a bow just a touch lower than he properly owed her. He briefly considered dropping to one knee, but decided that would be excessive.

“Ah,” she said dryly. “I see. Well, that’s quite a shame.”

He paused, then rose slowly from the bow, taken aback. “I… beg your pardon?”

“I wished to speak with the kin of my kin,” she said. “But I see you’re playing Odin’s loyal subject, today. When should I come call again?”

Slowly, a smile spread across his face. “Now will be fine, I think,” he said. “Shall we walk, Lady?” He offered her his arm.

She took it with a wry smile of her own. “You love my son,” she said, as they strolled through the corridors, the train of her dress whispering softly along the ground beneath them. “That’s good. We knew he needed someone like you; someone who thinks like him, who can help him find his way among the aesir. You’ll care for him, will you not? Keep him safe?”

“As best I can,” he promised her.

“Good. I worry for him,” she admitted, looking almost ashamed. “He used to talk to me. Over a game of hnefatafl, if nothing else. Sometimes, though, he would come to me and we would simply… talk. But now he’s a young warrior and too old for mothering.” She shook her head, her curls bobbing with the motion. “I’m proud of him, and all he’s becoming. But still I worry.”

“We could talk,” said Benjamin, after a moment. “You and me, I mean. Not of things told in confidence, of course, but of those small victories – and defeats – that no other aesir would think to tell you of.”

Frigga looked delighted. “Really? You would do that?”

“Of course,” he said. “Particularly if you’re willing to bribe me with the occasional cask of mead. There’s no mead in all the realms as excellent as yours, my Lady.”

She was laughing now. “Flatterer! Yes, of course. All the mead you desire.”

“Ah.” He raised his eyebrows. “A dangerous promise to make.”

She snorted, feigning unamusement, and then sobered. Took a deep breath. “And now, Lord Benjamin, I have something to say to Odin’s loyal subject. If you will?”

He frowned, but he released her arm and stepped back, inclining his head in acknowledgement.

“Odin loves his sons,” she said, eyes blazing. “ _Both_ his sons. You may not always agree with his methods, but you will never forget that your love for Loki is nothing, nothing at all, not compared to Odin’s love. Am I understood?”

She glared up at him, every inch a Lady of Asgard, and for the first time since that awful meal, Benjamin recalled that Odin had just as much giant’s blood as he did. The Allfather wasn’t nearly as straight-forward as he liked the people of Asgard to think. So what did that say about his wife?

Slowly, he dropped to one knee. “It will be as you say, Lady Frigga.”

* * *

“Now then, little liar,” said Benjamin, with a cheerful brisk clap of his hands, “We’re going to Midgard.”

Loki looked up from the set of throwing daggers he had been cleaning, working dirt from the crevices of the carved handles with a soft brush and exquisite concentration. “Really?” he asked, disbelieving. “Father gave permission?”

“You just have to know how to ask,” said Benjamin with a smug smile. He draped himself casually over one of the green velvet couches of Loki’s public rooms, projecting ‘mysterious and powerful mage’ with every fibre of his being.

(The conversation had gone something like this:

“I’m taking him to Midgard, Allfather.”

“What? But he’s - “

“ - almost five centuries old now; just young enough that I might yet be able to disabuse him of the notion that species is the most important thing about a person. He needs to visit other realms, other peoples. I know the lay of the land in Midgard. The boy will be safe. Would you rather I took him to Helheim to play with the ghosts?”

“...you have my permission to use the bifrost.”

“Indeed.”)

“Not even Thor has been to Midgard,” said Loki, sounding slightly awed. He was tidying away his knives now, tucking them back into hidden sheaths and stowing his cleaning supplies in an unassuming wooden box. His hands moved with the sure confidence born only of long practise and much repetition.

Sometimes Benjamin forgot that for all his clever ways and quick wit, Loki had been raised in Asgard with Thor for a brother. Whatever else he was, on some level must the boy not have been a warrior too? Watching the unassuming competence in his brisk movements, Benjamin felt a brief pang, and resolved to resume practising his swordplay. In private. He longed momentarily for the mind-and-body challenge of a good match; but there was no need to broadcast his skills to every busybody in the realm.

“Yet,” said Benjamin, and to his surprise there was a slight yet still audible hint of bitterness to his voice. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Not even Thor has been to Midgard _yet_. Every young warrior of Asgard spends a span gadding about Midgard, summoning up lightning on demand and being worshiped as a god. No doubt young Thor will try his hand at the sport sooner or later. Sooner, by my reckoning.”

“But not yet,” said Loki. “I’m the first.” He rose, an unrepentant grin upon his face. “Can we go _now_?”

* * *

“This isn’t my body,” said Loki. They were standing in the middle of London, a city the likes of which Loki had never seen before, teeming with the first humans he had ever been in the presence of, and Loki had eyes only for his own hands. He frowned down at them, faintly puzzled, as if surprised to find that they still dwelt at the ends of his arms.

“Looks like your body to me,” said Benjamin. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, enjoying the feel of cobblestones worn smooth as river-rock by endless rushing feet. He tried not to inhale through his nose. The stench of hundreds of humans living packed in close proximity was every bit as awful as he remembered.

Loki shook his head. “It feels wrong. Like there’s parts of me missing.”

Benjamin grinned. “Clever, isn’t it? It’s an illusion, of course, and a temporary one - I wouldn’t change your true self even if I could. Your father, when _he_ comes to earth he practically demands human attention. Just by being himself. Which is how you end up with temples and sagas and it’s generally quite awkward, in my opinion. I try to keep a lower profile. Some aspects of our being suppressed, new traits imitated with magic... I’ll take it off once we’re safe back in Asgard, never fear.”

Loki considered this. “I want to learn this spell,” he said, lowering his voice to avoid being overheard by the humans who bustled around them. One broad-shouldered man, not looking where he was going, almost ran into the boy - Loki sidestepped him neatly, but otherwise ignored him, gaze locked on Benjamin’s face. “Will you teach me?”

Benjamin hesitated, just for a moment. Loki was under two layers of magic - one to make an frost giant seem Asgardian, another to make an Asgardian seem human. Getting the interactions perfect had been tricky, to say the least. If Loki started playing around with the spells on his own...

On the other hand, it would sit better with Benjamin if Loki could cast the spell on himself. And of course, the quickest way to ensure that Loki would play around with the spells on his own would be to refuse to teach him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Benjamin heard the words young Loki had so painstakingly taught the Lady Sif: ‘My skills leave much to be desired. But perhaps if I had a teacher...?’

“Of course,” Benjamin said.

* * *

Loki cursed, and Benjamin could see the exact moment when the gathering threads of magic slipped his grasp and dissipated, now no more powerful now than a puff of air.

“Patience,” he said, letting none of his own frustration creep into his tone. The spell had been a side project for decades, but only in the past few weeks had they begun to make any progress. Loki’s impatience had, predictably, been kindled anew. “You’re further along now than we were even an hour ago.”

Loki growled an inarticulate reply, glaring down at his hands as if they offended him.

It wasn’t fair on the boy, thought Benjamin, suppressing a sigh. The version of the spell he’d taught Loki was a warped and twisted thing, designed to settled lightly over and around his Asgardian disguise without disrupting it. The magic had to be pulled into unnatural paths, counter-intuitive and difficult to grasp with will alone. Twice now this day alone, he had deliberately distracted his nephew at a vital moment, when his fledgling spell threatened to disrupt the magics already in place. He wasn’t sure he himself could have mastered a spell like this at Loki’s age, even _without_ the interference of another mage – and he couldn’t even explain to the boy why his struggles were so disproportionate to his goals.

“This is advanced magic,” he said instead. Which was the truth, anyhow. “Let’s take a break. Try something easier. How are you coming with the shadow cloak?”

Loki took a deep breath, and let it out in a huff. “I’ll get this right,” he promised.

Benjamin quirked a smile. “I have no doubt of that, my little liar. But as your tutor, I say it’s time to take a break. Show me your shadow cloak.”

With a frustrated flick of his fingers, Loki drew the shadows up around him, and vanished from view. Benjamin very carefully didn’t raise his eyebrows. A week ago the child had been summoning up mere wisps of shadow, enough to hide him from a casual glance and nothing more.

Perhaps Loki would master his much-twisted spells after all.

* * *

Benjamin entered his hall, secured the door, turned around, and stopped. “The only possible conclusion I can reach here,” he said after a moment, “is that you’re hiding from something.”

There were spots of colour high on Loki’s cheeks; from shame or anger or some other emotion, Benjamin could not yet say. “I’m not hiding,” he said, petulant.

“Then explain to me,” he said, pulling a chair out from the table and sinking bonelessly into it, “why you’ve come into my hall without permission, an action which, I might add, would normally have me plotting swift and subtle revenge on the perpetrator.”

“Barely even counts as a hall,” Loki muttered. “Looks more like a Midgard hut.”

Benjamin smiled, showing just a few more teeth than any smart man would have been comfortable seeing. “This would be a king’s hall on Midgard,” he said, tone quite pleasant. “I simply find that wood and thatch suit me better than marble and gold.”

Some part of Loki must have realised the dangerous ground he trod upon, because he rubbed one fist sharply across his eyes and then said, “My apologies, Uncle. For the intrusion and my words alike.”

Benjamin leaned back, and gestured for Loki to take a chair.

The boy dropped into the seat with less than his usual grace, and admitted, “I thought no one would look for me here. You hardly ever let anyone into your rooms, not even me… I had hoped that I would be gone before you returned.”

“Better for you that you weren’t,” said Benjamin, in that same light, pleasant voice. “I would still have known you’d been here; this way, you get the chance to explain your actions.”

Loki swallowed. “I cut off Sif’s hair,” he muttered.

“Ah. May I ask why?”

He gestured sharply, as if he had intended to strike the table, but thought better of it at the very last moment. “I don’t know!”

“Hmm.” Benjamin narrowed his eyes. “Is that truth?”

Loki nodded helplessly. “I just… she was flirting with Thor again, and he was all but drooling, and I was so tired of it, but – why did I cut her hair? Now they’re _both_ furious with me. It was annoying, and I wanted it to stop, but things are even worse now. And I knew it would be. I knew cutting her hair wouldn’t help, and I did it anyways! I don’t understand! I could have had a much _subtler_ revenge,” he added, petulant.

Oh, dear. Had Loki been jealous of Thor, he wondered, or of Sif? “Lucky for you, I think I know what the problem is.”

“You do?”

“Oh, yes.” Benjamin smiled. “Seven centuries old now, aren’t you? You’re growing up.”

Loki blinked. “What?”

Benjamin shrugged. “I don’t pretend to understand it. But as young aesir begin to grow into their adulthood – young humans too, and vanir and elves as well – ” and jotunn, he didn’t say “ - you begin to change. While your body is remaking itself, your emotions will be much more volatile. You’ll be more prone to acting without thinking. But at the end of it all, you’ll be a man. You might even grow a beard,” he added, thoughtfully.

Loki looked horrified, though whether at volatile emotions or the thought of growing a beard, Benjamin couldn’t say. “You mean… this happens to everyone?” When Benjamin nodded, Loki clutched at the hem of his tunic, twisting it in his hands. “But – Ymir below and Sól above, how will Asgard _survive_ that?”

“Tell me truthfully,” Benjamin said, leaning forward. “If Thor begins to act without thinking… will anything be different?”

Taken off guard, Loki let a laugh escape. “No,” he admitted, “no, not likely.”

“Nothing ‘likely’ about it,” Benjamin said, settling back again, “No one will even notice, Thor least of all. Everyone goes a bit mad at this age, Loki. But not everyone realises what’s happening. You just have to keep a closer eye on yourself. If you want to do something but you can’t understand why, take a little longer to think about it. And when you slip – and you will inevitably slip – take responsibility for what you did. Alternatively,” he added, after thinking about it for a moment, “just don’t get caught. And remember that growing older is an explanation, little liar, not an excuse.”

And then, to both their surprise, there was a knock at Benjamin’s door. They exchanged puzzled glances, then with a shrug Benjamin rose to draw back the bolts and open the door.

Thor was standing there, hair dishevelled, face creased with anger. “Send Loki out,” he demanded without preamble.

Benjamin stared down at him.

Several long moments passed in silence, and Thor began to look uncomfortable. “… send Loki out, if you please?” he tried.

“Has no one explained guest-right to you, child?” he asked, reverting to dangerously pleasant tones. “If you mean your brother violence, it is my duty as his host to protect him. Shall I fetch my sword?”

Thor was too proud to step back or show fear, but his expression grew more uncertain, and his posture lost some of its arrogant confidence. Benjamin knew the rumours about himself. He was a craven coward; he was a brilliant strategist. He was a weak-armed scholar; he was a wild-eyed swordsman. He was a charlatan and a trickster; he was Asgard’s most powerful mage. Benjamin liked the rumours. It would be an exaggeration to say he’d started most of them himself, but he’d certainly helped them along.

Benjamin allowed his smile to sharpen slowly. “Well, child?” he asked.

Thor backed down with ill grace. “I’ll do him no harm,” he snapped. “I need only to speak with him.”

Benjamin felt the air stir as Loki appeared in the doorway behind him. “Speak, brother,” the smaller boy said, the picture of self-possessed dignity.

“Fix it,” Thor demanded immediately. “Sif still weeps, her mothers are furious, and Heimdall had anger enough to tell me where you hid! You will _fix_ this, brother, or, or - !”

And Loki nodded, solemn-eyed. “I’ll fix it, brother.”

* * *

“And you didn’t talk him out of it?” Odin asked, fists clenched. They were in one of Odin’s private reception chambers, which Benjamin supposed was a blessing. Odin could as easily have insisted they hold this conversation in throne room.

Benjamin was contriving to lounge carelessly, despite the lack of seat. It was a difficult trick, to radiate that much ease and confidence while standing firmly on one’s own two feet, but well worth learning. He shrugged. “He took responsibility for his actions and generated what I thought was a rather creative solution to the problem. I can’t help but think that’s the sort of behaviour you’d want me to encourage, Allfather.”

“But – the dwarves!” Odin tugged at his beard, a nervous gesture that belayed his angry tone. “The girl’s hair will grow back. He need not do this. You cannot trust a dwarf, Vili! My spear is missing. So is the war-hammer Mjolnir. The boy can wield neither weapon with any skill - what if the dwarves turn upon him? He should not even have been able to take them without me noticing,” the Allfather added, frowning.

“He may not succeed,” Benjamin admitted. As Odin’s last statement had not been a question, he ignored it, inspecting his nails for rough spots and the added illusion of disinterest. “But I don’t think he’ll come to any lasting harm. Nor will Mjolnir or Gungnir. He has wit enough to name himself Loki Odinson, and your name carries power: the dwarves are too clever to court the Allfather’s enmity.”

He glanced up. To his surprise, he recognised the look on Odin’s face. He had seen it on the face of Midgard men, time and again. Most often as they sent their boys off to war.

Something in him softened somewhat. “He won’t be a child much longer, Odin,” Benjamin said, and his voice was gentler than he’d allowed in Odin’s presence since the day he returned to Asgard. “Men must make their own decisions, and face the consequences. Let him face this.”

* * *

They gathered on the bifrost, waiting. Sif and Thor, Odin and Frigga, Ve wringing his hands, Heimdall and the Warriors Three – and, a short way from the others, Benjamin.

Heimdall made a soft sound, and the already strained conversation fell silent as he stepped forward with his sword to send to bifrost down to Loki. Long moments passed - longer in perception than reality, Benjamin suspected - and then Loki stumbled out into view. He was dirty and his clothes were bedraggled. He carried a sack, which bulged with unknown items and from which a glorious spear protruded.

And his mouth was stitched shut with golden wire, blood dribbling down his chin.

In the chaos that came next, Benjamin reached him first. “Back, give us space!” he snapped at the others. Wide-eyed, the children retreated, although Thor lingered only a few paces away, looking half-frantic. Odin’s face was impassive; he wrapped one gentle arm around Frigga, comforting her in her sudden tears.

With two fingers under Loki’s chin, Benjamin tipped the boy’s head back, and inspected the damage. Crude, wide stitches - a small mercy. He tested the strength of the wire, then retrieved the knife from his belt and carefully teased out the knot with the bladetip. He withdrew the wire as gently as he could, but he could see by Loki’s face that it pained him; the boy made no noise, but could not hold back his tears.

Still holding his chin, his body between Loki and the others, Benjamin raised his other hand and passed it over the punctures, still bleeding sluggishly; they healed the wake of his fingertips, and from the look of relief on Loki’s face, the pain had left him. A kind whimsy of the Nornir, that – Benjamin hadn’t been sure his spell would take the pain as well.

“Illusion only,” he said softly, for Loki’s ears alone. He lifted the hem of his tunic and wiped the blood away from Loki’s chin. One subtle swipe banished the tears as well. “But it will hold until you are finished here, and can seek out the healing room. Well done, my little liar.” He released Loki’s chin and retreated, coiling the wire as he went. He’d give it back to Loki later; he might like to have some small token made of it. Or perhaps he’d prefer to have it destroyed. Either way, it wasn’t Benjamin’s to keep.

There was a moment of silence as the assembled aesir stared at Loki. Then the boy took a deep breath, stood a little straighter, and said with perfect dry humour: “I must admit, things did not go precisely as I had planned.”

Thor laughed first – a deep guffaw, tinged with relief. The Warriors Three joined him next; and then Sif couldn’t help but chuckle. Odin laughed softly, perhaps more than Frigga’s benefit than anything else; Benjamin only smiled. Heimdall, of course, remained impassive.

“Brother,” Thor teased, still chuckling, “Do your plans _ever_ go precisely as you mean them?”

“Sometimes,” said Loki, grinning sheepishly. “Every now and again. Thankfully, I have a talent for thinking on my feet.” He dropped to one knee, and began rummaging in the sack. He withdrew and beautiful golden ring, and a startled hush fell over the group. “For you, Mother,” he said, almost shyly. “Every ninth night, eight rings of the same weight will drop from it.”

Half the ladies of Asgard would be wearing one within the year, thought Benjamin, amused.

Frigga came forward the take the ring. “My son,” she said, and reached out gently to tuck a lock of hair back behind his ear, and rest her hand upon his head for just a moment. “You will join us for dinner tonight and tell us the story of your adventures.”

Thor frowned slightly – neither he nor Loki had yet been permitted to join their parents in the greater feasting hall. “Father…?”

Odin smiled. “You too, Thor. Your mother is right – you’re old enough now, the both of you. You’ll be men sooner than not.” He sounded wistful.

Loki, grinning now, reached down to retrieve the spear. “For you, Father. I’m sorry I took it. But - look.”

Odin came forward then, and took it from Loki’s offering hands. “To take a man’s weapon, unasked, is a great wrong,” he said sternly, and Loki bowed his head. Odin relented. “But you have made an already quite fine weapon into something extraordinary,” he said, inspecting the shaft. He ran his fingers along it, then said again, sounding almost surprised, “Quite extraordinary. Finer than I have seen in many a century. I thank you, my son.”

He, too, reached out, and rested his hand for just a moment on Loki’s head. The bifrost pulsed gently under their feet, the three of them in the sort of quiet accord that Benjamin had never seen. If Loki were any more filled with pride, Benjamin thought, he might well inflate with it, and float right off the rainbow bridge. The boy beamed up at his parents for just a few moments too long, and then seemed to come back to himself. Hastily, he bent once more to the sack. From it, he withdrew a sleepy looking piglet, with the look of a wild boar to its features. Young though it was, it had an impressive mane; and both mane and bristles shone gold.

“For you, Uncle Ve,” he said. “When it is grown, it will run through air and water better than any horse, and the glow from its mane and bristles will light your way through the darkest night.” Ve came forward to take the little creature, looking enchanted – he brought it to his face, and wandered back to his place on the bifrost, murmuring quiet endearments at the disgruntled looking thing. Benjamin suspect his brother was already composing a poem praising the piglet’s virtues.

Loki reached into the sack again, and Benjamin was unsurprised when Loki met his eyes. He withdrew a tight-folded bundle, roughly half again the size of a closed fist. It was a strange jumble of hard angles and soft cloth. The entire thing was the honey-rich colour of burnished brass.

“The ship Skidbladner,” Loki said, holding out with an almost shy gesture of offering. “If unfolded to its full size, it can carry half the warriors of Asgard - but if you know the trick of it, it can also be a ship suitable for one man and his possessions. For your travels on Midgard,” he added unnecessarily, and Benjamin found himself unexpectedly touched.

“A worthy gift,” he said softly - and then louder, for everyone’s ears, “I look forward to the story of how you earned it, Loki Silvertongue.” He retreated back from the look of delight on Loki’s face.

Thor looked like he had been trying very hard not to ask if Loki brought anything for him, but he couldn’t hide his glee when Loki turned to him next. Benjamin sometimes thought the little prince was like one of those galumphing hounds they kept in the halls of Midgard; friendly and fierce and loyal to a fault, and broadcasting every emotion so loudly that they could probably tell what he was feeling even in the mists of Niflheim

“For you, brother,” said Loki, and with a grunt he pulled a warhammer from the sack. “You will find Mjolnir much improved, I think: the dwarves have reforged it in the heart of a dying star. Its power has no equal. It will never fail to strike where you aim, and it will always return to your hand. And,” he added, as Thor whooped in delight and snatched the weapon from Loki, “once you wield it in battle, it will thereafter know your hand, and be light as a breath of air to you but crushingly heavy to the grip of another.”

“Brother!” Thor crowed, all but lost for words. “Oh, my brother, this is a fine gift indeed!” The Warriors Three crowded closer, and Benjamin thought he heard Fandral crooning the same sort of endearments to the weapon that Ve had crooned to his boar.

Benjamin raised an eyebrow as something occurred to him: in the most technical way of things, Odin had not yet gifted Mjolnr to Thor. All of Asgard knew that he meant to, but at some future time. He glanced at Odin, who looked equal parts annoyed, amused, and resigned. Thor would be permitted to keep the gift, then. He wondered, did the older boy realised just how much his brother had truly given him?

Silence fell once again when Loki turned to Sif. Reaching into the sack, he withdrew a hank of golden hair, bound in an elegant knot. It shone in the light of the bifrost; it had better lustre even than the girl’s own hair had possessed, Benjamin thought, much praised though her locks had been.

“It will grow as your true hair did,” he said softly. “But it will never hinder you in battle, and the shine of it won’t dull with age.” He held it out to her.

Sif stared at the hair, mesmerised. She reached out, uncertain, then brought her hand up to run over her own hair. Loki claimed to have cut it, but it would have been more accurate to say he’d shaved her all but bald. Benjamin still had no idea how the boy had managed it. The new growth was a half inch long, and coal black rather than the golden blond that all had expected. Benjamin privately suspect that the cause was the girl’s own magic; her will wielded unconsciously. Perhaps in her heart of hearts, the girl was tired of the type of attention her beautiful hair had brought her. And he could well be right about that, because:

“No,” she said, and tossed her hair – or rather, jerked her chin back and up. Some habits, it seemed, were not easily broken. “I don’t want it. I desire no gifts from you, Loki.”

“Please,” said Loki. “You’re angry. I understand, and deserve your ire. But – ” he hesitated, and when he spoke the words came slowly, as if he was weighing the value of each word before letting it go. “We are both young, Lady Sif. Young and proud and mere shadows of what we might become. But we grow older every day, and someday soon I will be a man, and you will be a woman. Perhaps on that day, we will see things more clearly. Perhaps on that day you will wish for the hair. So for the sake of that future day…” and he held it out again.

For a few long moments, Sif didn’t move. Then she reached out, and took the hair.

* * *

When he returned from the healing room, Loki had thought at first to decorate one of his knife-hilts with the wire. Benjamin had hastily dissuaded him.

“Having known my blood once,” Loki had argued, “the wire will seek to return to it. A dagger thus adorned will be difficult to mislay, even in the heat of battle.”

“I cede the point,” Benjamin had said, voice dust-dry, “but perhaps such blood-seeking properties would be better spent on an item that lacks a cutting edge.”

“Ah,” Loki had said, after a moment’s thought.

Instead, he’d hastily shaped and coiled it into a small pendant, held together with knots and twists only, neither cutting nor welding the wire. It made the little ornament more immediately recognizable for what it was – and meant he could return it to its original form, if he had to. Loki and Benjamin had been in accord, in that respect. The science of the dwarves was strange, but powerful. According to Loki, the wire had flown through the air and sewn his mouth shut with no outside impetus beyond the dwarf Brokk’s command. There was no reason to meddle with its basic structure until they better understood what it could do, and no time yet for leisurely experiments.

Loki had named it Vartari, and he wore it even now, as he lounged on his chair, nibbling idly at a plate heaped high with food. Benjamin snuck a glance at the young man, and smiled. Perhaps it was vain of him, but something about Loki’s pose made him think that his nephew had been studying him closely, these past few centuries; he recognized in Loki’s long limbs the same illusion of effortless ease that he himself so carefully projected.

Sif and the Warriors Three sat at the table with Loki and Thor, having been invited to join the Allfather’s family in the feasting hall for what Benjamin privately thought of as the “drinking and boasting” portion of the evening. They were too far away for Benjamin to hear them clearly, but it was easy enough to interpret the gist of their words. First there had been many compliments for Vartari; now it appeared that Loki was re-telling the story of his adventures, to judge by the rapt attention the others were paying him.

Benjamin watched them from the corner of his eye, sipping idly at his mead. It was past time Loki received this kind of acclaim, by his way of thinking. Past time indeed. He allowed himself a small, smug smile of satisfaction.

The Lady Sif, he noted, did not look happy. She wore a thin silver circlet, as befitted an aesir of her station, and it was striking against short black hair in a way it had never been against golden waves. It dipped across her brow, and loaned her a sort of elegant anger; the still poise of the moment just before a storm. For the first time Benjamin thought she looked like a Lady of Asgard in truth and not just name.

Benjamin frowned slightly. Sif had leaned forward, and was gesturing sharply. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but the wary look on Loki’s face spoke volumes. Then she laughed, and Benjamin caught the sound of -

“ - Liesmith, not Silvertongue! It’s not possible. You couldn’t _really_ have - ”

And her voice dipped down again, but the flash of hurt in Loki’s eyes was a sword through Benjamin’s heart. Thor had leaned forward too, had one hand on Loki’s shoulder, his laugh just a little forced, but whatever he was saying, it was too little, too late.

Benjamin felt one hand tighten slowly into a fist, utterly without his volition. He took a deep breath, and tossed back his horn of mead - then filled it up and tossed it back again. It would do Loki no good if he interfered now. But to sit here, watching as Sif turned his moment of triumph to mockery... something dark and ugly and all too familiar was coiling in his chest. He could almost feel the weight of his sword at his side, though he knew the blade still hung in his hall.

Despite everything, they are children yet, he reminded himself. Loki was the exception; in so many ways, the others remained proud young fools.

Instead of acting, he turned to Ve. It took very little prompting to start his brother nattering on about his latest poem. Benjamin forced himself to listen attentively, and ask questions, and continued grimly throwing back horns of mead as he waited for Sif and the Warriors Three to depart.

When at last they left, Benjamin restrained himself until the door closed behind them and then immediately rose, still clutching his meadhorn. Beside him, Ve fell silent, posture somewhere between worried and confused. As he was already ignoring all proper protocol for the feasting table, Benjamin felt quite comfortable ignoring Ve as well, and marched purposefully down to where Thor and Loki sat.

“Your Uncle Ve would like to speak with you,” he lied blithely to Thor, trusting in Ve’s love of his own voice to cover for Benjamin’s falsehood.

Thor hesitated, uncertain, then shot his brother an apologetic look and rose from the table. Benjamin barely waited for Thor to clear the seat before slipping past the older boy and plunking down in his spot - he stared pointedly at Thor until he turned and hurried away.

“Liesmith,” he informed Loki without preamble, “is just a name. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter.” He tapped his chest. “In here, where it counts? Nameless. Just _you_. Odinson, Silvertongue, Liesmith - they’re all just names, and you’ll have many more. Don’t let this one be any more or less important to you. Don’t let _any_ words be important enough to hurt you.”

“Names have power,” said Loki softly, staring at his empty plate. “When you call me liar, it’s not - you don’t mean it the same way. In their mouths, it’s foul. They look at me differently after they say it.”

“The only true power of a name,” said Benjamin firmly, “is in magic. And the only true power of magic is illusion, brought forth by will. If you turn your will to the effort of making their words powerless, then their words will have no power. It’s like - kinship. Kinship isn’t blood. Kinship is words that we let be important.” He wasn’t entirely sure that made sense, given the strange look Loki was giving him, but he plowed onward:

“Consider your your uncle, your father, and me,” he said. “Odin the warrior, Ve the skald, and me... well, you know me. Nothing alike. Kin in nothing but our shared blood. But look at your brother’s friends. The - Warriors Three, they call themselves? Not a drop of blood between them, but family nonetheless. It’s a name. They called themselves all by one name, and they willed it to mean something, and now they would die for one another and not think the price too high. Blood is not family, Loki. _Species_ is not family. I have loved humans, in my day, and called them brother, a courtesy which even your father may no longer have from me. We’ve gone so insular in Asgard. It makes us stupid. Family is what we will it to be.”

He’d had a point. Had he made it? It was difficult to recall. There was a pause, and Benjamin realised that either the room was swaying gently back and forth, or he was.

“You’re drunk, Uncle,” Loki informed him dryly.

Oh. Benjamin peered into his horn, which was, yet again, empty. “Perhaps,” he conceded. “But am I wrong?”

* * *

“You love Midgard,” said Loki one day.

Benjamin shrugged, and traced runes in the fine white sand. Seagulls spiraled overhead, screeching. “I spent a lot of time here in my youth,” he said, trying to keep the threatening hint of bitterness from creeping into his voice. “And now that they’ve re-invented some of the comforts Rome took for granted...”

“But you choose to live in Asgard,” said Loki, looking out over the ocean’s waves. There was a pointedly wistful look on his face, just a little too practised to be truthful emotion.

Benjamin refused to let himself smile. Loki had a question on his mind, that was clear enough, but he was a very clever young man still labouring under the handicap of having been raised with Thor for a brother. He’d made leaps and bounds in the time Benjamin had known him, but tricks that left Asgard’s favoured son and his four friends bamboozled were not quite so subtle as Loki might think.

“Well,” he said blandly, brushing the sand from his hands, “it’s impossible to find good mead on Midgard. You’re better off just drinking the beer, honestly.” Loki’s brows creased ever-so-slightly. Soon, Benjamin thought fondly, he’d be able to hide even such tiny tell-tales as that. “So we can discuss at depth my love of fermented malt, or you can just ask the question that’s on your mind, my little liar.”

“Why did you come back?”

Benjamin shrugged. “Odin asked me to.”

“You hate Father,” said Loki, bluntly. The effect was somewhat ruined by the way the sea breeze kept blowing his hair into his eyes. It made him look younger, softer. If he had been a child of Midgard, he would be seventeen or eighteen now, a man in all the ways that counted. “You hate Father, and you love Midgard. You still use your Midgardian name, _Benjamin_. If you tell me I can ask, do me the courtesy of actually answering.”

“I did answer,” said Benjamin. “And I answered you truthfully. But no one ever tells the whole truth, Loki. You know that better than anyone. We couldn’t if we wanted to. To tell the entire truth of even the simplest thought we would have to - ”

“ - begin in the days before Yggdrasil,” Loki chorused along with him. “I know. And now you’re trying to distract me. A little _more_ of the truth, if you please.”

Benjamin smiled, now. “Alright. How about this: Asgard is a realm full of individuals who think that the best solution to any problem is to hit it with a stick. Those who don’t think so, like to pretend that they do. It’s the done thing. Although I am perfectly capable of hitting things with sticks, and even enjoy it on occasion, it doesn’t top my list of most intellectually stimulating activities. And I don’t care to pretend otherwise. When Odin banished me, it hurt like hell, but eventually I realised I was more at home among the scholars of Midgard than the warriors of Asgard. Over time, however, Odin’s wrath cooled, and he grew to believe that it would be regretful, should I not be here to see you and your brother grow up. Eventually I became convinced he was correct. So now I live in Asgard.”

Benjamin could taste sea-salt on his tongue. He wondered if Loki would notice that he had failed to specify just _who_ Odin had feared would experience the regret.

“And we were both right,” Benjamin continued. “I would very much have regretted not knowing you, Loki.” There. It was the truth, and it would do Loki good to hear it - and it Benjamin was lucky, it would distract Loki from musing too closely on Benjamin’ earlier choice of words.

Loki was smiling in a strange sort of way. “Tell me another truth,” he said, “that I may begin to see the patterns of what you do not say.”

Benjamin startled into a laugh. “Oh, my little liar,” he said, tilting his head back to feel the sun on his face. “Another truth, then. Answer me this: how many generations have passed between yourself and Audhumbla?” He glanced at Loki from the corners of his eyes.

Loki frowned. “At the beginning of things, Audhumbla licked Buri from the ice. Buri fathered Bor, Bor fathered Odin, Odin fathered me. Five generations.”

“And how many dwelt in Asgard?” Benjamin asked.

“Three,” Loki said immediately. “Bor lived just long enough to dwell in these halls a few short years before he passed; then Odin, and then me.”

“Five generations,” Benjamin repeated. “Five generations since the dawn of time. Three in the halls of Asgard, since the world tree took root. Do you know how many generations of mankind have dwelt in Midgard in those same days?” Loki shook his head, and Benjamin said, “Nor do I. Nor does anyone, I think. If I had to guess? Eight thousand. Eight thousand _generations_ , at the least. Likely more.”

Loki looked slightly stunned. It was one thing to know that mortal humans lived brief spans, briefer than the creatures of any other realm, but it was another thing to think of it in such terms: three generations against thousands.

“Tell me,” said Benjamin, the sand soft-but-harsh between his fingers, “how much has changed in Midgard since your father’s day?”

Loki sensed the trick in the question. “It is still my father’s day,” he answered.

Benjamin grinned without humour, baring his teeth. “Precisely.”

* * *

Loki raised his hand before his eyes, and rippled his fingers. “I have it,” he said quietly.

Benjamin looked up from his book. No tome of ancient wisdom, this, but rather one of Chrétien de Troyes’ florid bits of sensationalism. It was a good seven centuries out of date, yet it still remained one of his guilty pleasures. Benjamin had considered spelling the text to look like a philosophical treatise, but in the end he resisted the temptation. He was old enough to read what he damn well pleased.

“You’re sure,” he said. It was more statement than question. Even from here, he could see that the illusion was perfect - Loki _was_ human, in every perceptible way. And the boy had done it by himself.

Loki nodded. “I can... feel it. How it all fits together.” He closed his eyes, and world seemed to blur, and then Loki was vanir.

Benjamin wrinkled his nose. “Must you?” he said, with exaggerated weariness. “The vanir are just aesir who couldn’t make the cut.”

With a grin, Loki blurred and was aesir again. Only...

“Huh,” said Benjamin, after a moment. “I see you figured out the gender issue.” He wasn’t sure which took him aback more: that Loki had figured it out so quickly, and without help, or that Loki’s feminine form appeared to have hit puberty much more _exuberantly_ than his masculine one.

Loki prodded her chest with an expression of great interest. “Does it work with animals?”

“It’s harder,” Benjamin answered, “but yes. It’s just a more complicated type of illusion.”

Loki frowned. “If I were a bird, could I fly?” When Benjamin nodded his assent, Loki said, “And yet you still call it illusion. By that way of thinking, all magic could be called illusion.”

“Of course,” said Benjamin. “How could magic be anything else? Quickly, tell me: what is the difference between magic and science?”

“They are one and the same,” Loki answered promptly. The response all aesir children were taught.

But Benjamin wanted more than a rote answer. “Wrong.” The slightest of red flushes touched Loki’s cheeks; a faint outward hint of her carefully controlled embarrassment. Benjamin added, “If that were true, why do your brother and his friends scorn magic as the coward’s path? For that matter, why ask _me_ to teach you magic? Your tutors are the finest scientists in all Asgard. But when I offered, you asked me to teach you which-so-e'er spells I knew. Why? What was different about what I did?”

Now the flush was fading from Loki’s cheeks, as the problem caught her mind and pushed shame aside. “Because... I could not see how you did it. The science my tutors teach progresses first to second to third. Sometimes it is difficult to understand, but there is always a logical sequence. Your spell seemed to have none.”

“Because there was none,” Benjamin answered. “You know that by now. Magic is will; science is logic. Magic comes from within; science from without. Magic is illusion; science is reality. Have you ever heard of a warrior magician?”

Loki shook her head. Almost as an afterthought, she blurred, and wore a young man’s body again.

“Because there is no such thing. There are warriors who also use magic, and magicians who also fight, but there are no magics of combat. There are magics that can be used to aid you in combat, yes, but no magics that can fight the battle for you. Magic,” he said again, because it bore repeating, “is illusion.”

Loki tilted his head. “But if I were a bird, I could fly.”

Benjamin shrugged. “You could seem to fly. An illusion can be so clever cast as to fool even the caster.”

“I think you’re wrong,” said Loki, quietly.

Benjamin shrugged again. “Words are cheap. If that’s what you think, I suggest you prove it.”

* * *

Thor swung the hammer - not Mjolnir, of course, just a practise weapon - and Sif skipped back, but not fast enough. It struck her a glancing blow, sending her spinning. Roaring, he bounded forward to strike the final blow - and she thrust her spear-butt upward with a grin, catching him solidly between the eyes.

Thor staggered back, shaking his head as if to clear it, and she threw herself upright. Tossing the spear aside, she darted in close and dealt him a ringing blow across the face - no open-palmed ladylike slap, but a solid strike with her fist that snapped his head back and bloodied his nose.

Thor let out a startled _whoof_ , and fell backward, landing hard on his rump. He sat there for a moment, stunned, blood trickling down his chin and matting his still-thin beard, then began laughing even louder than before. As Sif reached forward to help him up, he knocked aside her hand, and launched himself forward, diving for her knees. She hit the ground hard beside him, and soon they were rolling in the dirt, both trying to wrestle the other into submission, laughing in delight at the strength in their limbs.

Benjamin smiled in spite of himself. They took such joy in the exchange of blows - it almost made him want to pick up a sword and challenge young Fandral to a duel, just for the pleasure of feeling his muscles burn. He was half Asgardian, after all. There was some warrior in his blood whether he liked it or not.

Beside him, running a whetstone methodically along the edge of a spearpoint, Loki frowned. “I’ve never understood,” he confessed in a low murmur.

Benjamin half-turned to look at the boy. “Never understood what?”

“Why he always laughs,” said Loki.

“For the joy of it,” said Benjamin, shrugging.

Loki snorted. “There’s nothing _joyful_ about that. Do you know what isn’t fun? Broken bones and black eyes. Do you know what _is_ fun? Using your mind instead of your fists. Problem-solving. The intellectual challenge. _That_ is joy.”

Benjamin paused. “True,” he said, after a moment. “It is _much_ more enjoyable to win the battle without needing to strike a single blow. Or better yet, lead your opponent to strike the decisive blow against himself. But when there’s nothing at stake, once in a while... I’ve seen you fight, Loki. You’re a warrior as much as your brother. Do you take no joy in it at all?”

“I like to be good at everything I do,” said Loki flatly. “And I don’t care to show weakness. That doesn’t mean I enjoy it.”

On the field, Thor and Sif fell laughing, side by side.

* * *

“Lord Benjamin.”

Benjamin flipped his book shut and rose. He tucked the tome under his one arm and crossed the other over his chest, and inclined his body in a slight yet respectful bow. “Lady Frigga,” he said.

“Walk with me,” she invited.

With a flick of his fingers he tucked the book away in shadows, then offered her his arm. The gesture was, perhaps, just a touch too courtly. She laughed, and laid her hand in the crook of his elbow with equally exaggerated care.

“You haven't come to spar with me of late,” she said, as they strolled through gleaming marble halls and courtyard of burnished gold, their footsteps ringing softly in the emptiness. “I have missed our bouts.”

Benjamin smiled. “And I as well.” He meant it, too. She had the same defensive training as any woman, and practised with her blade no more than any Lady of Asgard, but she had flair for the weapon that most lacked. Benjamin himself had by far the greater skill with a sword, but she managed to surprise him at least once per practise. It was a shame, in some ways, that Frigga believed herself a mother to her core. If she would let him teach her the magics to give herself a man’s form, she would make a fascinating warrior.

“Then tear yourself away from your dusty tomes and join us,” she said, her tone lightly teasing.

He bowed his head, mock-contrite. “As you bid, so shall it be, my Lady,” he promised. They both knew that he would only come on those days when no other sparring partner joined her. It wasn’t in Frigga’s nature to spread tales, but he couldn’t say the same of the women whose company she kept. He still valued his veil of rumours too much to let it go.

“Well?” she asked. She looked at him expectantly.

It had been weeks since they spoke last, and she was plainly eager for his tidings, so Benjamin obliged her. “In his own way your son is every bit as stubborn as a true-born aesir,” he said. “In all his life he has never met a boundary he could not surpass with will and wit and time enough to plan. But now our studies have brought him to the edge of what magic will permit; I fear he will be sorely disappointed to learn that some laws refuse to be broken.” He spoke in vagaries, as always. It was a fine line to tread, between Loki’s trust and Frigga’s peace of mind.

Frigga laughed, and the sound echoed from smooth walls. “A lesson all children of Asgard must learn,” she said.

If Benjamin had needed reason to hate the Lady Frigga, her taste in men would have been enough. But she embraced her sons with such equal abandon, Benjamin sometimes thought she actually _forgot_ her younger boy was of a stranger’s bloodline. For that, he could almost love her.

“Most younglings learn it on the battlefield,” he said. “He’ll not come back from the experiences scarred. Not where we can see it, at least. Part of me fears, my Lady, that he may do himself some deeper damage, should he use his power carelessly.”

Frigga glanced sidelong at him, a rueful smile upon her lips. “I think, my Lord, that the world of will and wit _is_ my son’s battlefield. He wields wit as a shield and will as a sword, and finds his joy in combat there.”

Benjamin stopped.

“...Lord Benjamin?” she asked, uncertain.

“He fights on one field, and Thor on another,” Benjamin said, after a moment.

Frigga smiled, content. “Yes,” she said. “My sons are very much alike.”

* * *

When Benjamin saw Loki next, it took him several long moment to recognise his - niece?

“Oh, no,” he said, when he finally caught on. “You didn’t.”

The mare whickered her amusement, then pranced sideways.

“Oh, _no_ ,” said Benjamin, catching sight of the second complication. His tone was somewhere between resignation and barely restrained hilarity. “Pregnant. You’re pregnant?”

If it were possible for a mare to look smug, this one did.

“Leaving aside the issues of why and how,” said Benjamin, in the dryest tones he could summon under the circumstances, “I have no idea whether you can carry to term or not. If you break the magics, or alter them in any way, I’d say you’ll certainly lose the foal. If you want to see this through, you’ll have to remain a mare for the duration.”

The mare snorted, and pawed at the ground, annoyed. But she appeared to have no intention of changing form, which Benjamin took to be an answer in of itself.

“Well. A full year as a horse,” said Benjamin, sighing. “I hope it’s worth it. And may I say, there had better be an excellent story behind all this? When you have proper vocal cords again, we’re sitting down with a few horns of good mead and you’re telling me the entire thing, hear me?”

The Loki mare tossed her mane, as if to say she expected nothing less.

* * *

The birth was hard, not the least because Loki forbore to have a midwife present. Benjamin couldn’t blame her. But he sat by her side, and sang the old songs to her. He didn’t know the right tunes - didn’t know the song-spells for easing birth, didn’t know how to sing in the frequencies science said could ease her pain - but he did his best. “Hold on,” he urged her. “Sól is coming. She’s always had a soft spot for horses, that one. Sól’s light will set things right again.”

And perhaps Sól did ease Loki’s pangs, or perhaps it was merely the power of suggestion and the unconscious will of both their magics, but when when the first rays of her light touched the mare, Loki gave one final heave and it was over.

Even as Benjamin reached forward to see what aid he might give, the mare was a man and Loki jerked himself upright, eyes daring Benjamin to so much as _try_ to lend a hand. “I’m - ” the word came out as a creak, his voice rusty from disuse. He cleared his throat, and tried again. “I’m fine. The pain left with the body.” He tried a sickly grin. “And I’ll stand up just as soon as I can convince my legs of that.”

Benjamin drew back, letting Loki have the space he needed. He tilted his head. “This was a powerful magic, little liar. I have never seen anything like it.”

Sweat-drenched and weary as he was, Loki still preened slightly at the praise. “You told me magic was all illusion,” he said in carefully casual tones.

“I did,” Benjamin agreed, staring at the small form as it struggled to its feet. So quickly - far faster than any mortal horse could have found its first legs. But then, this particular horse seemed to have something of an advantage in the area of legs.

“Is this illusion, then?” said Loki, gesturing at the little grey-coated creature. There was a challenge in his eyes, and pride warred with exhaustion his face.

Benjamin shook his head, slowly. “I do not know. It seems real enough.”

“Then all magic is not illusion,” he said.

Benjamin made himself smile. “This seems a great deal of effort to prove your point,” he murmured, kneeling down and extending his hand to the little horse. It trotted over with surprising grace, the unsteadiness in its eight limbs less even than that of a normal foal its age, and lipped at his fingers. He’d half expected the creature to vanish the moment Loki resumed his normal form, yet here it was, as solid as ever.

“Then all magic is not illusion,” Loki repeated. “Give me this, uncle. Give me this victory.”

“Victory was yours to earn, not mine to grant. You have taken it already,” Benjamin replied. “I tell you this: all magic _was_ illusion. But,” and he stared down at the impossible foal, “that no longer seems to be the case.”

“Its name is Sleipnir,” was all Loki said. “I think I shall give it to Father.” But he smiled softly, with unassumed delight.

* * *

Benjamin sat on the ground, legs splayed out before him and back braced against the smooth bronze of the walls, watching as Odin crouched down and gently ran his hands over Sleipnir’s downy-soft coat. The Allfather checked the foal’s teeth, felt his legs, tugged with quiet playfulness on the little creature’s forelock. He let it nibble curiously at his beard. The air smelled of fresh hay and clean horse, and Benjamin inhaled deeply through his nose, taking it in. Sunlight streaming in through the stable window caught the dust motes, wrapping Odin and the foal in a swirl of golden light.

“I think I understand now,” he said at last, loath though he was to break the perfect silence. “What Loki has done - what he will do - oh, Allfather. This place is stagnant, and he isn’t. He couldn’t be. He will have the courage and the wit to accomplish things no natural-born child of Asgard ever could. You were right to bring him here.”

Odin stared at the foal Sleipnir, who nickered and scuffed three hooves at the floor. Benjamin wondered if Odin understood what had happened. His son had given him both weapon and mount. He wondered if Odin knew what it would mean to Loki - and to the people of Asgard - when he appeared before them, riding Sleipnir and bearing Gungnir.

“I think,” said Odin into the soft silence, “That now would be a good time for you to return to Midgard.”

Benjamin blinked. “I... what?”

Odin wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Thor will be king,” he said. “Loki must learn his place. It will be easier for him, if you are not here.”

“What?” said Benjamin again, voice sharper.

“When I brought you back, I thought... but you’ve made it worse. You gave him permission to be something that Asgard can never accept,” the Allfather said. “He can’t be what he has to be, with you beside him.”

“I gave him permission to be himself,” said Benjamin.

“Yes,” said the Allfather.

Benjamin swallowed hard, drawing his splayed legs in to his chest. “Am I banished?” he asked, throat tight with the effort of controlling his voice.

“No,” said Odin. “No, I just... think you should leave, for a while.” He sounded wretched.

Benjamin rose slowly, bracing himself against the smooth metal wall. He stared down at the Allfather. For once in his life, words had deserted him.

“I want what’s best for the boy,” said Odin, rising also and turning to face Benjamin at last. His eyes pleaded silently for absolution, and he sounded all his many years of age. “For both my boys.”

“I know,” said Benjamin, eyes hard. “That’s the only reason I don’t have my hands around your wrinkled neck right now, you old fool.”

“It would be best,” said Odin softly, “if you didn’t say goodbye.”

* * *

Time passed. Decades ran together, became centuries.

Some pains never fade.

He stepped out of the bar and frowned up at the sky, which was unobligingly overcast. Not a star in sight. A gust of damp wind rolled through the street, unpleasantly clammy even through the folds of his thick-knit sweater. Without thinking, he wrapped his coat tighter around his body, grabbing handfuls of cloth and tucking each fist against the opposite elbow. A moment passed - then, with a sheepish glance back over his shoulder, he dropped the coat-folds and fumbled instead for the buttons. Habits formed over centuries were not so easily broken, and he wondered how long it would be before he stopped longing for the simplicity of a good thick cloak.

“Benjamin.”

His hand reached automatically for his sword, sheathed in illusion at his hip – then dropped, empty, to his side. The voice had aged, deepening into manhood, but he recognized it yet.

“It’s Adam these days,” he said, a smile spreading across his face as he turned to face the speaker. “Benjamin was just another name, Loki Silvertongue.”

And then the smile died. Loki was holding Gungnir.

“Ill tidings, then,” Adam said.

Loki nodded once, the curving horns of his formal armour sweeping through the air. “Father has fallen into the Odinsleep, and may never awaken. Thor has been banished to Midgard. And I am Allfather of the aesir.”

Now, Adam decided, was not the time to try to sort through the strange and contradictory rush of emotion that had risen in him at Loki’s first piece of news. Instead, he nodded down the street. “Walk with me,” he suggested, “and tell me how this came to be.”

And Loki told him. He told of a brother too young to know he wasn’t old enough; a king too weary to see the truth before his eyes. Adam heard beneath his words another story, equally true: a story of jealousy, and good intent, and a boy who never quite fit in. A story of brother raised above brother, both striving for the favour of a father too damn fool stubborn to ever tell them _why_.

Two kingdoms on the brink of war, with love and hate equally to blame. The Bard would have killed for a chance to write _this_ play.

Adam noted, in a distant sort of way, that the misting rain didn’t seem to gather on Loki’s face or armour the way it did on his own skin, and he wondered if his nephew was truly here. If he looked, would he see the tell-tale twist in the threads of reality that meant magic was at play?

“It was meant to be the best kind of trick,” Loki said. “It would have been for everyone’s benefit. Even Thor’s.”

“Everyone but the guards who died,” said Adam, shrewdly. And the jotunn Loki’s actions had killed, he didn’t say. He wasn’t ready to hear Loki say that the jotunn didn’t count; he wasn’t ready to hear Loki say that all Adam’s work had been for naught.

Loki flinched. “Arinbjorn and Gisli,” he said. “I hadn’t meant for - I thought Father would - it had been so long since his last Odinsleep. I didn’t know. He was meant to summon the Destroyer before anyone got hurt.”

Adam pressed his lips together, and waited patiently to see what words his silence might draw from Loki.

They travelled further along the damp streets than he had expected before Loki finally said, “I’m going to make it right.” He took a deep breath. “I will lure Laufey to Asgard, and strike him down so that all may see my loyalty. And then I’ll crush Jotunheim, that the frost giants will never trouble us again.”

Adam stared up into the misty light of the streetlamps. Was that mist he felt beading on his face, or a cold sweat? He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was perched with Loki on the edge of some great precipice; a place to fall, or to fly. Impossible to know which it would be, without taking that first step off the edge.

“Did they ever tell you that your grandmother was a frost giantess?” he asked at last, glancing sidelong at his nephew. “Everyone likes to forget it, but she was. She was a giantess, and she was a good woman, and she did many great things for Asgard. Your father is half frost giant, as am I, as is your uncle Ve. Although frankly, sometimes I wonder if I got their share of the blood. A very traditional Asgardian, your father.”

“Then there is frost giant blood in my veins, too,” said Loki, gaze fixed somewhere in the distance.

“Yes,” said Adam, completely truthful.

“There’s quite a bit of frost giant blood in my veins,” he said.

Adam wondered if Njord was playing tricks again, because it felt like a chill wind had stolen the breath from his lungs. “Oh?” was all he could manage. How had Loki discovered his origins? His mind presented any number of scenarios, few of them pleasant.

“You knew,” said Loki.

Adam was trying to decide if Loki sounded resigned, or betrayed. “I did,” he admitted, deciding on truth.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He turned Gungnir round and round in his hands, as if mesmerised by the spear’s polished surfaces.

“It... it was thought, that -” The truth, he owed Loki the truth, but now was not the time to drive another wedge between the young man and his father. “It was thought that it would be best if you did not know. If you thought yourself a child of Asgard.”

“It was thought,” said Loki flatly, still staring at the spear. “You mean my father decided. He decided, and he forbade you to tell me the truth.”

In was beginning to rain in earnest now, misty dampness ceding to falling drops. Adam tugged his collar closer to his neck. “He wanted only the best for you,” he said after a long moment. “He loves you, Loki. We didn’t always see eye to eye about - anything, really, you least of all, but he loves you just as much as I do.”

Loki laughed, and there was a touch of madness to the sound. “I know.” He looked up, finally, and his eyes gleamed strangely beneath the curve of his helmet’s horns. “That’s why I have to do this. I will show him that I am his son. That I am a better son than Thor ever was. When he sees me kill Laufey before his eyes, he will _know_. And then I will crush Jotunheim once and for all. What aesir could call me traitor then?”

Things went further than you meant them to, Adam silently translated. Now you’re afraid. You think the only way out is forward. Of all the times to finally wrap your head around the knack of acting like a typical, mule-stubborn Asgardian... He considered and disregarded several unhelpful replies, ranging from ‘this may be a bit of an overreaction’ to ‘can I help?’, and finally settled on, “I could return to Asgard with you.”

Loki shook his head. “You weren’t banished, not officially, but most of the aesir think otherwise. I can’t bring you back without weakening my position.” And my position is already too weak for comfort, he didn’t say.

Adam nodded. The rain had plastered his hair to his forehead and was beginning to trickle down his back. He didn’t dare suggest they seek shelter, lest he seem to be changing the subject. “I understand why you want this, but you cannot make him love you more than he already does.”

“And all magic is illusion,” Loki answered. His clothes remained perfectly dry; a projected image for certain, there was no question of that now. “You are not as all-knowing as you like to pretend, my uncle.”

The truth in the words stung, but Adam didn’t flinch. “However this ends, Loki... you will always have a home in my hall, should you desire it. In whatever realm I may dwell.”

“I will succeed, Uncle,” said Loki, “And then you may return to your hall in Asgard, if you desire.”

“If I desire? To be witness to the reign of my little liar?” Adam tried for a grin. “There’s nothing in the nine realms that would be powerful enough to keep me away.”

Loki made a kind of a smile, and then there was nothing but the rain.


End file.
